Time Slivers

A former student of mine recently changed her college major from fine art to philosophy. I don't know why- we haven't had that conversation yet. I do know that the decision was probably a difficult one. The thing is, she will excell in whatever she chooses. She is a multi-gifted, young lady; equally comfortable with a paint brush, a violin bow or a lectern. She is an artist, a member of that odd community of people who see. George Steiner said, "Art is a dangerous thing that can take over our inner house and transform us." I suppose this is why artists struggle with 'the way things are.' The struggle seems especially challenging if the artist is a Christian. Artists ask, "What if?" as they capture slivers of time with layers of paint, or, make the moment about the moment with a line of perfectly arranged musical notes. My former student is both an artist and a Christian. I pray she understands that choosing between Art and Philosophy is not an either/or proposition. The real issue, the one we all must wrestle, is about mark-making. Whether it is paint on canvas or chalk on a sidewalk, a fresco on the ceiling of a Vatican chapel or a crayon drawing on the door of a refrigerator, we all leave marks in this world. Some are bigger. Some are louder.
For centuries the Church has lacked discernment in the area of mark-making. Dorothy Sayers said, “The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables. Church [attendance] by all means, and decent forms of amusement, certainly- but what use is all that if in the very center of his life and occupation he is insulting God with bad carpentry? ...The only Christian work is a work well done.” Letters To A Diminished Church.
The good marks, Kingdom marks, endure. I have no doubt my young friend will turn the Philosophy Department upside down. That'll leave a mark.

The Path

William Barclay said, “The only unanswerable argument for Christianity is a Christian life.” Terri and I spend Wednesday evenings with Greg and Susan Card, two brilliant artists who live Christian lives with graceful humility. And, as Matt Peterson says, “Humility is beautiful in every season.” We meet in their studio for dinner, conversation, music, prayer. Greg is working on a series of paintings on black with pearlescent polymers whose colors shift as light moves across them. The effect is stunning. The other night it occurred to me that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to photograph these paintings. They must be experienced, in-person. This, of course, would eliminate publication in journals or books, narrowing the audience and limiting the exposure. Why make art, if not to be seen? Why does God make flowers in remote mountain regions, or fantastical creatures who roam the sea-floor, never to be seen by man? Is exposure the ultimate goal? Or is the joy born out of the process sufficient? For Greg, the joy is evident whenever he shares a new work. He is on the path every true artist yearns for, the path of discovery. Perhaps art is merely the communication of a discovery, or, perhaps art awaits discovery. I don’t know. I am just grateful for the gift of Greg and Susan’s friendship.

Made to Make

There is a unique relationship that exists between the artist and the material, between the creator and the created; the more resistant the material, the more difficult the maker’s task. Works we call ‘Masterpieces’ are merely reflections of the artist’s skill, discipline and vision (which is, incidentally, my wife’s definition of art). The makers of these pieces have ‘taken the materials captive’, bringing them into a place of obedience.
A new friend of mine is a five-year-old boy named Rocco, a lover of life whose wonder has not (yet) been robbed. A few days before Rocco’s 5th birthday, in a fit of passion and excitement, he exclaimed to his mother, “Mom, did you know that God made a man out of dirt!!!” Let that sink in a moment. The same fingers that would later write the law in stone formed a man from earth, the crowning achievement of divine creativity, a creation with the capacity to create. From that first man, made out of dirt, to the present man, this truth is evident- We were made to make. And, as Andy Crouch states in his latest work, Culture Making, “Culture is what we make of the world.”
John Holt, educator and author, made this observation:
“Very young children seem to have what could be called an Instinct of Workmanship. We tend not to see it, because they are unskillful and their materials crude. But watch the loving care with which a little child smoothes off a sand cake and shapes a mud pie. They want to make it as well as they can, not to please someone else, but to satisfy themselves.” (How Children Learn, August 2, 1961 entry).
Thousands of years have passed since the first ‘dirt man’ and, for reasons unbeknownst to many, the Creator God still desires to be in relationship with His creation. In the Hebrew Scriptures there is a word some scholars believe to be one of the most important words in the Bible- Chesed. It is, as Michael Card told me, a word that almost defies literal translation. Lexical Aids to the Old Testament says this:
“The term is closely related to the forgiveness of sins. Chesed does not necessarily involve a covenant, nor does it necessarily mean fidelity to a covenant. It is more the attitude of love which contains mercy.”
Whether we like it, or even believe it, we are the workmanship of a loving Creator who continues to shape and fashion us in spite of our resistance. The only explanation to this mystery I can find is Chesed.